July 08, 2008	Tuesday	Rajab 4, 1429

MOSCOW, July 7: Russian faith healer Grigory Grabovoi was convicted on Monday on 11 counts of fraud for promising followers he could resurrect their dead relatives, Russian media reported.

Grabovoi defrauded his victims “using methods of psychological pressure,” the judge at Moscow’s Tagansky district court said while reading the verdict, the Interfax news agency reported.

Grabovoi first came to prosecutors’ attention after he was approached by mothers of children killed in the 2004 Beslan hostage crisis, in which more than 300 hostages, many of them children, were killed at a school in the Caucasus region.

The Beslan mothers were not directly named as victims in the case, however.

The verdict said the healer’s followers paid about $1,700 for his resurrection services.

Prosecutors have asked the judge to sentence Grabovoi to 12 years in prison, Interfax reported.

Grabovoi’s lawyers maintain his innocence, saying he did not specifically promise to resurrect the dead, and was just charging for attendance at his seminars.

Some of his followers came to the courthouse on Monday and were shown praising Grabovoi on Russian television.—AFP